I’m finally getting around to it, and if the technology gods are blessing me today then I should have my MacBook setup with Mac OS X 10.5.x and Ubuntu 8.10 within about an hour and a half from now. Starting up via Boot Camp and rEFIt!
I’ve also taken the chance to completely wipe my hard drive (backing everything up first of course!), I didn’t have to because Boot Camp can nudge in an additional partition. But things have been getting a bit slow on the MacBook recently, so I thought that I’d start from scratch to speed things up in the longer term.
For those interested, I’m following the tutorial on the Ubuntu website for MacBook Dual Boot installation.
UPDATE
One hour later. Dual boot is working with Mac OS X and Ubuntu! Actually, I’m surprised how well Ubuntu works on MacBook.
Recently I did the IBM developerWorks article for “Intelligent Agents and the Semantic Web” which used Java (and the JADE library) to build agents (for the non-techies agents are a bit like software versions of robots).
However, I’ve recently re-stumbled across the Microsoft Robotics Development Studio (MRDS), which is free to download and play with!!! Apparently it’s not just good for developing robots (and the simulation of robotics), but can be used for a lot more (see zdnets article on “Why business users should grab a copy of Microsoft’s new robotics toolkit“). Potentially it could be used for web-based agents, particularly intelligent ones!
Trouble is, I haven’t played with it… because it only works on Microsoft Windows!
But there is a however! It has recently been brought up on the Mono forums (see “MS Robotics Runtime Port“) , that people are going to be trying to implement the missing functions found within the MRDS executable (so that it can run on Mono, rather than .Net… therefore making it runnable on Linux or Mac). The guys on the Mono forums have also created a wiki page (see “MRDS on Mono“) in order to stimulate discussion and development.
I really hope to be able to see the Microsoft Robotics Development Studio on Mono soon, particularly if I can hook into it with the Mono versions of Java and Ruby!
…
Right, that was a quick post… comment if you have any questions or comments… I’ve got to head off to the University now.
Cheers,
Daniel
Intelligent Agents and the Semantic Web
One of my (independent) articles has been published as a feature article on the IBM developerWorks website. It is “Intelligent Agents and the Semantic Web“. Not only that, but they also published a podcast episode with me. Have a read, the examples are in Java, but all the theory applies to any programming language and agent library.
What? “Semantic” Web, “Linked” Data and Web “3.0″? What are they?!!!?
Today (Tuesday 28th October 2008), I gave a seminar/discussion of the new web-based buzzwords, and explained that terms like Semantic Web, Linked Data and Web 3.0 aren’t marketing nonsense but very well defined techniques and technologies. The seminar went really well, and the ideas were well received.
In fact, you can have a look at the “iPaper” version of the slides , thanks to my academia.edu account.
New main website design
I’ve got a brand new combine harvester…. well, actually a new main website design which explains what I do, what I’m interested in… and gives a lot more info than my old one did. Go have a look at vanirsystems.com.
Right, I’ve been doing a lot with Genetic Algorithms (I’m actually implementing some using the Ruby Programming Language). However, the masters unit which covers G.A.s is quite theoretical, and aimed at mathematically improving the evolution process. So, I’m sending this message out:
Wanted: Links (e.g. Hyperlinks or Articles/Documentation/Papers) of Real World Applications which implement Genetic Algorithms. Particularly if they are engineering based rather than biological modelling based, but I’ll look at either. Source code (or even pseudocode) of the GA would be a huge bonus but not essential.
Please comment on this post or send me an email, I’d love to hear about it!
Cheers,
Daniel
Well, well, well… you may have noticed that I haven’t made a blog post since the one about the diary.
Well, I’ve just started the Masters (MSc in Machine Learning and Data Mining) at the University of Bristol. I had an intro week last week, and started attending lectures and other events yesterday.
I am really really enjoying it, the only one thing that I am a bit worried about is that it’s going to be taking up a lot more time than I realised. Which may affect me earning some money, unless I work on things which are similar enough to the stuff that I am working on at University. We shall see, it is only the first week, and things shall probably calm down a little.
I am particularly enjoying the biological aspect of the course (e.g. Genetic Algorithms/Programming and Computational Genomics and Bioinformatics), and I’m looking forward to touching the psychological aspects also.
This is actually going to sound quite weird coming from someone who titles himself “Technology Evangelist”, but I really don’t like using technology… computers (hardware and software) are so awkward to use, mobile phones never have enough signal and it’s all so reliant on electricity. The one thing that I truly feel about the whole subject of Machine Learning and Data Mining is that it is supposed to make things easier! In order for technology to become really useful we have to look towards some things that we have outside of technology:
- High/Deep Semantics and Art
- Biology, Psychology and other Sciences
- Ubiquity/Omnipresence
- Humanities and Society
Maybe the seven liberal arts can also help out:
- Grammar
- Rhetoric
- Logic
- Geometry
- Arithmetic
- Music
- Astronomy
I do not believe that we can continue with technology in it’s current state. As for the Semantic Web, I do believe it is a step in the right direction, but it is only a small piece of the future puzzle.
